Preliminary figures released by Macao’s Public Security Police Force show that 90,615 visitors arrived during the Spring Festival Golden Week, 65.3% fewer than the arrivals recorded in the equivalent period last year. The figures exclude arrivals by non-resident workers and students.
The Spring Festival Golden Week holiday ran from 11 to 17 February in Mainland China. Given the stay-put call by the mainland authorities during the Spring Festival holidays, Mainland tourists accounted for 90.7% or about 82,190 of the arrivals to Macao in the period, 44.9% fewer than during the equivalent period in 2020.
On the sixth and seventh days of the week-long festival, 16 and 17 February, arrivals from Mainland China were up by 5.3% and 22.8%, respectively, in year-on-year terms. These were the two days that recorded year-on-year increases on 2020’s data.
According to figures provided by industry operators and published by the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), the average rate of occupancy of hotels and guesthouses in Macao reached 48.3% during the Spring Festival Golden Week, a decrease of 4.6 percentage points from the comparable festival period a year earlier.
The average occupancy rate at five-star hotels was 50.6%, a decrease of 4.7 percentage points. The average occupancy rate at four-star hotels rose by 1.5 percentage points, to 49.8%; at three-star hotels fell to 46.1%, down by 5.6 percentage points. Two-star hotels had an average occupancy rate of 24.6%, down 23.0 percentage points, and at guesthouses occupancy rates fell by 13.3 percentage points, to 27.3%.
The average room rate for a single night in a hotel or guesthouse in Macao during the Spring Festival Golden Week was MOP1,175.30 this year, 42.1% less than last year. Five-star hotels, with an average room rate of MOP1,444.80 a night, saw the smallest year-on-year decrease in daily rates, down 38.7%.
In four-star hotels, the average room rate fell by 51.5% to MOP734.0, in three-star hotels it fell by 47.0% to MOP780.0, in two-star hotels it declined by 79.4% to MOP206.20, and in guesthouses it fell by 78.9% to MOP167.0.
Between 11 and 17 February, MGTO conducted 10 inspections at major ports of entry, tourist attractions and hotels to assess measures in place to prevent the pandemic. The inspections did not reveal any irregularities.
With the situation around the COVID-19 pandemic generally stable in Mainland China, the start of the vaccination programme and other factors, Macao anticipates a gradual rebound in visitor arrivals.
Aiming at the Mainland visitor market, the Office will continue the cooperation with e-commerce platforms, strengthen its promotional efforts on social media. It also plans to conduct a number of programmes to attract visitors to Macao after the Spring Festival period, as well as tourism industry promotion activities in several cities in the Greater Bay Area. The Office will also evaluate the feasibility of hosting promotion activities similar to the “Macao Week in Beijing” held in September last year in other major cities in the Mainland, highlighting Macao’s image as a safe and quality destination, bolstering travellers’ confidence and striving for a greater number of visitors from the Mainland to Macao.
Furthermore, MGTO will deepen “tourism +” cross-sector integration and promote captivating tourism products of “tourism + MICE”, “tourism + culture and creativity”, “tourism + sports”, in order to steer the tourism industry towards a recovery path and help generate greater momentum to move other industries forward.
Macao welcomed 90,615 visitors during the Spring Festival Golden Week 
Tourist spots around the city were adorned with festive decorations to herald the Year of the Ox